India Demanding That RIM Let It Snoop On Encrypted Email Messages

from the let-us-eavesdrop-or-no-more-crackberry dept

It's certainly no secret that governments like to snoop on various forms of communication whenever possible, but they're usually not quite so blatant about the specifics. Endgadget points us to the news that Indian security officials have demanded that RIM open up a backdoor to unencrypt all messages sent via the Blackberry network or face being shutdown in India. With approximately 400,000 Crackberry users in India, that's likely to upset quite a few people. At this point, though, do people doing things likely to attract the attention of the feds not know to seek out more secure means of communication?

And in related news ...

what right's ???

India is a developing country where laws are made on demand !!! not much is on the books and wont be for a very long time !!! there are no " protection's " and "rights" as we know them here !! so if the Indian govt. wants to read people's email, there's not really much people can do about it !!!

from mrs euphemia kabila

Good day, It is my pleasure to contact you for a business venture which I and my Son Mack, intend to establish in your country. Though I have not met with you before but I believe, one has to risk confiding in succeed some times in life.

There is this huge amount of Eighteen million U.S dollars ($18,000,000.00) which my late Husband kept for us with a Security Company in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire before he was assassinated by unknown persons. Now I and my son decided to invest this money in your country or anywhere safe enough outside Africa for security and political reasons.

We want you to help us claim and retrieve this fund from the Security
Company and transfer it into your personal account in your country for investment purposes on these areas:

@Anonymous Asian - how different is this from the illustrious prez of the USA is doing, you dimwit?!! This happens in world's free-est society too you nitwit! With the s*** that's going on, nobody has the right answer.

This just serves to highlight the obvious disconnect between those in power and the rest of the world. I'd wager good money that 99.9% of politicians the world over have absolutely no damn idea what technology is all about, and view it as either an annoyance, or something to be twisted for their own ends in order to further enrich themselves or pursue some stupid, uninformed, completely nonsensical, don't-give-two-hoots-about-citizen's-rights agenda.

Also, this is not just a problem with India. Politicians all over the world are the same, be it the US that often blindly prides itself on its (technical) superiority, or some crappy underdeveloped African country. It's only a matter of scale.

P.S. I'd any day take the Indian Govt.'s open, albeit ham-handed attempt at raising the security bogey compared to the US Govt. that has repeatedly shown a complete and utter disregard for any sort of privacy for its own citizens. You want brazen phone tapping? How about snooping on your e-mails, text messages etc.? You name it, it's been and is being done to you already. If you like it, then be proud of staying in the US, UK etc., where even George Orwell would be shocked...

P.P.S. If any of you dismiss this as the ramblings of a deranged, delusional conspiracy-theorist, my friend, you're so sadly out of touch with reality that it is actually painful. Kindly do wake up before it is too late...

This seems pretty clueless

I will temper this comment with the fact that I'm relatively ignorant of the finer points of Indian jurisprudence and how evenly the rule of law is applied throughout the subcontinent; but having said that, I don't see how this policy can provide any overall benefit India at a time when they are trying to become a tier1 provider of technology services to the world. Even if you can make the argument that the goal of such a policy is to provide some sort of internal security guarantees, aren't you effectively throwing out any guarantees of "international" (read inter) network security with the national security bathwater?

Terrorism in India......

It took only about 4000 lives (9/11) for the American government to get s*** scared and do all the dirty things (declare wars, encroach privacy, evesdropping etc).

Compare that to India where hundreds of thousands of people have been victims of terrorism. Even now tens of people die every week. With terrorists becoming tech savy I am not surprised by this move (although it concerns me)